Editor’s Note. Mary Wood passed away last week. A poet, writer, and playwright, Mary was one of the great supporters of the arts, and particularly the literary arts, during her nine decades of life, most of which was spent on the Eastern Shore. In 2012, the Spy profiled her and we have reprinted that interview here.
Poet, playwright, conservationist, and consummate reader, Mary Wood, arrived on the Eastern Shore as a young wife to a teacher, then lawyer, Howard Wood in the early 1940s. Devoted to her husband in an era which always deferred to the career needs of the male spouse, there was no second guessing that decision as she raised her three children on a historic, but drafty, farmhouse on the edge of Centreville. Without a Bay Bridge to tie her to the cultural outlets of Baltimore or Washington, Mary turned to literature and poetry to fill the intellectual gap left from her years in New York City as a student at Barnard College.
Now, after more than 60 years of living in Centreville and Chestertown, she recalls those days, as well as shares her most current poetry with Dave Wheelan and Kurt Kolaja with a afternoon chat at her home a few blocks away from Washington College.
David Foster says
Years ago I was quite proud of an environmental article that I had written for the Spy. Then Jim Dissette called to say that I had only received one comment on that article but that one was from Mary Wood and she liked it. That one comment made my day.
Maria Wood says
Thank you so much for republishing this video of my grandmother. It’s a real gift to be able to see it.